Overall Teaching

Māra tempts the Bodhisattva but is unable to make any progress. The Bodhisattva recalls that the method which is superior to austerities is that practiced under the rose apple tree in his youth. He decides to eat solid food again and the five disciples leave him. He takes new clothing first from a funeral shroud and second from the gods. He then takes his first meal from the girl Sujātā. He bathes in the Nairañjanā river and his bowl is enshrined by gods and throne by nāgas. After eating he takes on all 32 major and 80 minor marks.

Summary

1.     During the six years of austerities Māra constantly tried to harm the Bodhisattva but finding that it would be impossible, he left, dejected.

a.     Māra said that it appeared the bodhisattva was on the verge of death: doing fire offerings brings greater merit and renunciation is hard.

b.    In reply the Bodhisattva said that Māra had ulterior motives and that he is not afraid of death: since it is inevitable. The Bodhisattva said that his highest perception comes from is purity and austerities and that no being can disturb him.

c.     The Bodhisattva said that Māras armies are as follows: (1) Desire, (2) discontent, (3) hunger and thirst, (4) craving, (5) dullness and stupor, (6) fear, (7) doubt, (8) anger and hypocrisy, and (9) wanting fame and (10) trying to put down others and exalt oneself.

d.    While his armies overcome the world of humans and gods, the Bodhisattva claims that he will destroy it just as an unbaked clay vessel.

2.     The Bodhisattva continued to think that the method of austerities did not eradicate birth, old age, and death, and that it does not lead to awakening. Rather, recalling the dhyānas that he achieved under the rose apple tree as a youth he knew this was the way to awakening. 

3.     However, due to the weakness of his body, he could not proceed to the seat of awakening, and so he resolved that he would begin to eat solid food again.

a.     The gods proposed to feed him through his pores, but considering that people had expected him to stop eating solid food, and noting that if he were to accept food through his pores from the gods that they might continue to believe he were fasting, he decided that to avoid hypocrisy he must eat solid food.

b.    The five ascetic companions thought that this was a sign that the Bodhisattva was unable to actualize wisdom, and that taking food indicated his decision to live a comfortable life. Thus they left him and stayed at the Deer Park at Ṛṣipatana near Vārāṇasī.

c.     Ten village girls had been serving the Bodhisattva while he engaged in austerities. The Bodhisattva was then offered food by the ten girls, and later began to engage in alms rounds. Among these, the girl Sujātā, in particular, had hoped that the Bodhisattva would eat solid food in order to attain awakening (the event of his first eating is recounted later).

4.     The Bodhisattva’s saffron robe of six years had aged. In order to find new clothing he decided to use the rag that covered the body of Sujātā’s servant Rādhā.

a.     The gods saw this and were upset that he would wrap himself in such lowly cloth.

b.    The Bodhisattva considered washing the rag, and the gods made a lotus pond appear before him and Śakra made a rock appear for him to wash it on. However, the Bodhisattva refused to let Śakra wash the cloth but washed it himself in order to demonstrate a renunciant’s conduct.

c.     When the Bodhisattva was washing the robes in the pond Māra, out of jealousy, raised the edge of the pond so he could not step out. Thus, the goddess of the kakubha tree on the side of the pond, at the request of the Bodhisattva, lowered a branch which the Bodhisattva held onto and was lifted out of the pond.

d.    Under the tree the Bodhisattva sewed Rāḍhā’s funeral rags into a robe: thus the spot is known as The Sewing of the Dusty Rags.

e.     However, Vimalaprabha, a god from the pure realms, was not happy with those robes and offered the Bodhisattva divine saffron-red robes which were suitable for a monk. The Bodhisattva accepted them and wore those starting the next morning before proceeding to the next village.

5.     Sujātā was told by the gods that as the Bodhisattva could now eat, she should do what she aspired to do and feed him. She prepared him milk from a thousand cows and skimming the cream off the top she got a thick cream. Pouring it into a clay pot she mixed it with rice and cooked it. While it was cooking signs appeared in the pot such as a swastika, endless knot, lotus, and so forth. A fortune teller said that this indicated that someone would attain awakening in her village.

a.     Sujātā had scattered flowers and perfumed water on a spot for the Bodhisattva and placed the milk porridge there.

b.    The servant Uttarā said Sujātā should fetch the priest, but in every direction Sujātā went to look for him she only saw the Bodhisattva: the gods had removed all extremist practitioners from the area. Uttarā was told that the Bodhisattva alone is the priest and monk and Sujātā sent her to invite him to her house.

c.     The Bodhisattva sat in Sujātā’s home and the porridge with honey was offered to the Bodhisattva in a golden vessel. The Bodhisattva knew that he would now surely attain awakening after he ate it.

d.    The Bodhisattva asked what he should do with Sujātā’s bowl, and Sujātā said that he must take it with him as she never offers food without also offering the bowl.

6.     After leaving Urubilvā the Bodhisattva bathed at the Nairañjana River where thousands of gods venerated him, perfuming the entire river. The gods gathered the water and enshrined it in their abodes and Sujātā collected the Bodhisattva’s hair and beard to make caityas for veneration.

a.     When the Bodhisattva emerged he was offered a throne made of jewels on the riverbank by a nāga girl.

b.    The Bodhisattva ate the milk porridge in the golden bowl and threw the bowl in the river without attachment. Then the nāga king Sāgara fetched the bowl and took it to his kingdom for veneration.

c.     Indra attempted to steal the bowl in the form of a garuḍa bird, but was unable. So he turned into his normal form as Śakra and requested the bowl politely and was given it. Thus, in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three there is a Procession of the Bowl on days of astrological juncture.

d.    The nāga girl later took the throne from the shore to venerate.

7.     In one moment after taking the solid food the Bodhisattva took on the manifestation of the thirty-two major and eighty minor marks with a halo of light around his body.

8.     This episode is recounted in verse form.